Short 'closer to quitting post'

Clare Short appears to be a step closer to quitting the Government.

Tony Blair has admitted that a fresh UN resolution on Iraq had never looked further away.

Ms Short emerged from an extraordinary Cabinet meeting still holding on to her job as International Development Secretary despite describing the Prime Minister's handling of the crisis as "reckless".

At the meeting Mr Blair told colleagues gathered in Downing Street that the UN route was not closed.

But it appears to be only a matter of time before Ms Short carries out her threat to resign if Britain goes to war without the new UN resolution France has pledged to veto.

Ms Short refused to answer questions except to confirm she remained a member of the Government as she left Number 10 more than 50 minutes after the meeting broke up.

Mr Blair's official spokesman would only say: "A number of Cabinet members made perfectly valid points about what everyone accepts is a very complicated issue."

But asked when the search for a UN resolution might be abandoned, he said: "We are in the diplomatic end game."

Even if a second resolution was somehow achieved Ms Short would almost certainly be sacked.

She had said at the weekend: "If there is not UN authority for military action or if there is not UN authority for the reconstruction of the country, I will not uphold a breach of international law or this undermining of the UN and I will resign from the Government."

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